


every time I open my eyes I find I am still inside myself

by madasthesea



Series: Nice work, kid [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Crying, Forehead Kisses, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Nightmares, Past Character Death, Platonic Cuddling, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 19:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17493641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madasthesea/pseuds/madasthesea
Summary: He died, they tell him. He and half the universe had all vanished into dust. An entire year had passed, and then the Avengers had saved them all, turned back the clock to the morning after it happened. It had been the blink of an eye for Peter. It had been over a year of mourning and grief for everyone else.“I’m sorry,” he says. “That must have sucked.”May starts crying again. Tony laughs, but there are tears caught in the creases of his cheeks.





	every time I open my eyes I find I am still inside myself

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I wish you would write a fic where Peter and the other snap victims don't remember getting dusted/the soul stone but the survivors do. Their minds are still affected, though (repressed memories, basically), so Peter still gets triggered by something related to the snap and doesn't know why he's panicking.

Peter wakes up with a gasp.

He must have had a bad dream or something. His heart is beating fast.

Strange, he usually remembers his dreams. But now there’s nothing. If he concentrates, he can almost remember going to bed last night. He blinks up at the bunk bed bars.

There’s a clatter and Peter jumps, his head whipping around to stare as his bedroom door is flung open.

May is standing there. When she sees him, her face pales and her eyes go wide. A hand flies to her mouth.

“May?” he asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

Her legs give out. She sits down hard in his doorway, one hand still covering her mouth.

“May!” Peter gasps, flinging the covers off and dashing the short distance until he’s kneeling in front of her. “May, what’s wrong?”

May just shakes her head, tears pooling in her eyes. Peter’s gut twists.

“Talk to me,” he begs, reaching for her hand. When he touches her, she sobs and seizes him by the shoulders, hauling him into her lap and hugging him like he’ll disintegrate if she doesn’t hold on tight enough.

“You’re actually here,” she whimpers. “You’re here. My baby. Oh, my baby.”

Peter blinks, not understanding what’s happening. He curls into her, trying to tuck himself under her chin like he used to as a child before he’d grown taller than her.

“May? I don’t understand.” When he wraps his arms around her waist, he can feel her shaking from her sobs.

“Peter. Baby, oh my gosh,” she keeps saying. She’s pressing almost painfully hard kisses to his hair and temple, her tears slicking his shoulder.

No matter how much he asks, she never tells him what’s wrong. She also never lets go of him. After a long time, he finally scoops her into his arms and carries her into the living room, setting her gently on the couch.

“I’m going to make you some tea, ok?” he says quietly.

May seems reluctant to be separated by even a few feet, clinging onto him like she’s the one with spider powers, but after a moment she hiccups and nods, uncurling her fingers from his t-shirt.

As the electric kettle boils and Peter digs around in the cupboards for tea bags, he searches desperately for some hint as to what could have set May off like that. He’s never seen her like that; not when his parents died, not at the Stark Expo when he’d gone missing, not even when a police officer brought him home covered in Ben’s blood.

Just as the kettle begins to hiss, someone pounds on their front door, so loud and unexpected Peter would have dropped the mug he’s holding if not for his powers. He sets it down on the counter, taking a single step toward the door before it’s suddenly shoved open.

Tony Stark is standing in his doorway.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter squeaks, way beyond confused now. He has absolutely no idea what is happening, but it feels like he accidently slept through the end of the world with the way everyone’s acting. Not only that but something about Tony, and even May, is off. There’s something behind their eyes that makes them look older than they should, sad and hollowed out.

And Tony, too, is staring at him like he’s some type of apparition.

“Peter,” Tony breathes.

“What’s going on?” Peter asks, fear tingling just beneath his skin.

Once again he doesn’t get an answer. Instead Tony steps forward and raises both hands to trace along Peter’s face, calloused thumbs gently following the hollows beneath his eyes, his cheekbones, his jaw. Peter blinks in surprise, but makes no move to pull away.

“Peter,” Tony whispers again, his voice breaking. And for the second time that morning, Peter is being tugged into a nearly suffocating hug.

Peter decides to just go with it, just ignore the fact that he and Mr. Stark have hugged twice in the two years they’ve known each other and both were after close calls in battles and this is a perfectly normal morning, with sunshine pouring through the kitchen windows and Peter standing perplexed in his pajamas.

As he winds his arms around Tony’s waist, sinks into the embrace, he inexplicably feels his throat tighten with emotion.

He realizes now, suddenly, that he _missed_ Tony. He missed him so much there’s an ache behind his sternum that is just now beginning to ease. And he missed May, too, missed her so much even the thought of it makes his eyes water.

But he doesn’t know _why_. May kissed him goodnight only the night before. He saw Tony three days ago.

He holds on tighter, tries to ease whatever longing he’s feeling by burying his nose in Tony’s shoulder.

“Kid,” Tony says. His voice still sounds wrecked for some reason.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter whispers into his shoulder.

Tony pulls away from him, once again trapping Peter’s face between his hands.

“Why are you upset?” Tony asks, brushing away the moisture clinging to Peter’s eyelashes.

“I don’t know.”

Tony nods like that’s the answer he was expecting. Peter wishes he was angry that no one is telling him anything, but mostly he’s just confused.

“What happened?” he tries again.

Tony tilts his chin up and kisses Peter on the forehead, firm and warm. Joy sparks, quick and flammable, in his stomach, then is doused by fear.

Tony rests their foreheads together, the fingers of his left hand lightly trembling as they brush against Peter’s pulse.

“What happened?” he pleads, his eyes squeezed shut.

Tony pulls away from him, looks to May for an answer. She bites her lip.

“Come sit down, sweetie,” she says, patting the couch next to her.

 

 

 

He died, they tell him. He and half the universe had all vanished into dust. An entire year had passed, and then the Avengers had saved them all, turned back the clock to the morning after it happened. It had been the blink of an eye for Peter. It had been over a year of mourning and grief for everyone else.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “That must have sucked.”

May, sitting next to him, starts crying again. Tony, across from them, laughs, but there are tears caught in the creases of his cheeks.

 

 

 

The first time he wakes up screaming, he can’t remember what he’d dreamt of. May reaches him first, then Tony. They’re staying in the Tower, for Mr. Stark’s sake apparently. Peter isn’t really sure.

May climbs onto his bed and shushes him, gets him a drink of water. Tony watches from the doorway. He assures them both that he’s fine.

May goes back to her room.

Tony goes down the hall where he thinks Peter can’t hear and has a panic attack.

Peter, unsure of what to do, tucks his knees up to his chest under the covers and listens, waiting until it’s over to go back to sleep.

 

 

 

Peter goes out to get some air. They’re doing construction on a building near the park he’s at, digging up the foundation. A hot breeze blows a cloud of dry dust into his eyes and mouth and suddenly he’s vomiting, on his hands and knees in the grass as he chokes and chokes.

When he’s done, there are people around him. Someone offers him a water bottle, which he takes with burning cheeks. A kind looking woman with a young face rubs his back.

“It’s ok. I know how you feel,” she says quietly. The words mean everything and nothing. None of them know, really. But they are all equally lost.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

 

 

 

Sometimes Mr. Stark’s gaze slides over Peter like he can’t see him. Peter resists the urge to scream at him, to demand that Tony looks at him, actually looks.

Today, Mr. Stark looks old. Not just older than he should, but _old._ He stares into the middle distance, a look like longing across his face.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks, his voice trembling, though he isn't sure why.

Tony sucks in a sharp breath.

“Kid.” He drops his head into his hands. “Could you… I'm sorry, but, could you not call me that anymore?”

Peter has no idea why Mr. Stark would ask that. In all the time they've known each other, the most Tony has ever done is roll his eyes at Peter's insistence on addressing him so formally. But right now Tony is shaking and embarrassed and distant.

“Ok, sure,” Peter says. “Sorry, Tony.”

The fear in Tony's face breaks just a little, and his eyes focus, and for the first time all day, he looks at Peter straight on.

He smiles, sad and proud. “Come here, Pete.”

Peter approaches the chair Tony is sitting on, and because he feels tired and weak, he kneels on the expensive rug, leaning heavily against Tony's knee.

Tony smoothes down one of Peter's curls. “You're such a good kid, Peter. I'm- I'm _so happy_ you're here.”

“Then why do you always seem sad when you look at me?” Peter blurts before he fully thinks the words.

Tony freezes. Peter can gear his heartbeat pick up.

“I'm sorry,” he stammers. “I don't know why I said that.”

Tony curls his fingers against Peter's jaw, massaging the short hair at the base of his neck.

“I'm not sad,” Tony whispers.

“Tony-“

“I'm not sad,” Tony says again. It sounds true. Peter sags against Tony knee, feeling frustrated and alone.

Tony leans forward and kisses Peter on the cheek. He does that now, touches Peter gently and intentionally, where he used to skirt a wide berth. Peter likes the affection, but he misses the way Tony’s focus used to zero in on him, like every word he said was significant. He selfishly wishes he could have both.

 

 

 

School is hard. You can tell who disappeared and who didn’t just by looking in their eyes. Half the people wander around looking confused, the other half traumatized.

Peter isn’t the first person to have a panic attack in the middle of class, but it doesn’t make him feel better when he comes back to himself whimpering.

When May has taken him home, and he’s curled in the corner of the couch wearing Ben’s old hoodie, she asks what set it off.

“I don’t know,” he whispers. Even if the moments before the panic attack hadn’t been a blur, he doubts there was any real catalyst, any specific sound or smell he could identify that incited his bone deep, nearly instinctual fear.

That’s the worst part, he decides. He doesn’t know. He never knows why he’s afraid, why he’s sad, why his skin feels too tight. He just knows that he _is_ , that these are quickly becoming integral parts of his being.

May bundles him up and they watch a movie with his head in her lap.

She hasn’t stopped looking at him like he’s a miracle. He’s still waiting to feel like one.

 

 

 

“Ned,” Peter asks where he's laying on his back on his friend's bed. It had been a long day at school, and Peter feels heavy and old. His voice is strained. Ned hums. “Am I dead?”

Ned looks at him in shock. “No, Peter.” His voice breaks, his eyes glassy with tears. “Do you feel dead?”

“No.” Tears are in Peter’s eyes, too, and he doesn’t bother wiping them away. He isn’t even sure why he’s crying.

“Then why did you ask?”

There are a lot of reasons. Breathless memories of pain and weightlessness.

“Because sometimes Mr. Stark looks at me like he misses me.”

Ned doesn’t have anything to say to that. He just sits and rubs Peter’s back as he curls into a ball and weeps.

 

 

 

Peter wakes up screaming.

He’s still screaming when Tony barges into his room.

It’s the third time this week that he’s woken up from nightmares, but it’s the first time May’s been at work. She’s done her best to avoid graveyard shifts since Peter came back, but it couldn’t last forever.

Peter’s scream tapers off as Tony practically throws himself onto Peter’s bed, snatching Peter’s wrists in both hands.

“I’m here,” Tony gasps, frantic. He pulls Peter around so his face isn’t buried in his pillow. Peter sucks in a breath and exhales a sob.

“Why is this happening?” he hiccups. “Why do I always feel like this? _Mr. Stark._ ”

Peter knows he isn’t supposed to call Tony that anymore, but it just slips out and he’s practically begging. Tony’s hands tighten around his wrists and when Peter glances up through his tears, Tony’s eyes are focused on him through the darkness, all of his attention zeroed in on Peter.

There’s a heavy stillness that makes Peter’s tears dry up in anticipation.

Tony lays down next to Peter, curled so that their knees touch, their noses nearly brushing.

To the rhythm of Tony sweeping his thumb across Peter’s knuckles, he finally hears the truth.

“You were with me when you died.”

Peter doesn’t even have the strength to breathe.

“I tried to bench you from the fight, but you stowed away.” Tony’s voice is soft and steady and sorry.

“When we lost, we... everyone else was gone in seconds. But you lasted almost a minute. And you felt all of it.”

Tony isn’t crying, but Peter is. Tony moves his hand from counting Peter’s fingers to his cheek, carefully wiping the tears away.

“I held you.” For the first time, Tony’s voice breaks. “I held you until you were gone. And then I waited to vanish, too.”

The fact that he didn’t goes unspoken. Peter wonders how long he sat there waiting before he realized.

Tony meets his gaze and for the first time since waking up all those weeks ago, Peter feels solid.

“I had to save you,” Tony whispers like an apology. “I had to save you.”

“You did,” Peter says without having to think about. He’s here, breathing and alive and that should be impossible, but Tony decided that he was more important than what should and shouldn’t be impossible.

“Peter,” Tony says, and now he’s crying, his breath stuttering as he presses their foreheads together. “Oh my gosh, _Peter_.”

Peter moves first, pulling himself into Tony’s arms. Tony crushes him to his chest, dropping scratchy kisses to the side of his head. Peter thinks that maybe this is the first time he’s felt solid to Tony, too.

It’s like coming home again. Like half of him had still been floating out in space and now, finally, all his atoms have found their way back.

Peter lets Tony hold him and kiss him, just like May had. When they do pull away, Tony looks at him like he’s a miracle.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "What Seems Like Joy" by Kaveh Akbar


End file.
